Talya Zax

New York

Opinion Editor and Culture Writer at Forward

Opinion editor and sometimes culture writer @jdforward. Words @newyorker, @nytimes, @theatlantic, @washingtonpost, etc. RTs aren't endorsements. [email protected]

Articles

How a cross-dressing Gene Hackman heralded a new age of Jewish assimilation in Hollywood

1 month ago | msn.com | Talya Zax

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How a cross-dressing Gene Hackman heralded a new age of Jewish assimilation in Hollywood

1 month ago | msn.com | Talya Zax
How a cross-dressing Gene Hackman heralded a new age of Jewish assimilation in Hollywood

1 month ago | forward.com | Talya Zax

There was absolutely nothing Jewish about Gene Hackman. But he played an essential part in one of the most extraordinary Jewish extravaganzas in film history: The climax of The Birdcage, in which he plays a bigoted conservative senator, Kevin Keeley, being surreally bamboozled by the gay, Jewish, drag club-operating parents of the young man engaged to his daughter.
10 wicked ways to avoid talking about Gaza and Trump this Thanksgiving

Nov 26, 2024 | forward.com | Talya Zax

By Talya Zax November 26, 2024Welcome to Thanksgiving! If you bring up the war in Gaza or the most recent U.S. election, you will be banished from the warm company of family and friends to experience the cold hard truth of human existence, without even the comforts that gnawing on a dry turkey leg can bring to help you.
Searching for the Soul of a Country in Its Food

Nov 24, 2024 | theatlantic.com | Talya Zax

Early in Yáng Shuāng-zǐ’s Taiwan Travelogue, the narrator, on a late night train, watches her traveling companion become engrossed in a book. When she asks about it, the woman balks at the interruption. “Her soul,” the narrator observes, “seemed to slot back into her body.” A good book can briefly steal your soul, replacing it with its own. But some books make you fight for that privilege; Taiwan Travelogue is one.
Booker finalist ‘The Safekeep’ is a moving look at history’s horrors

Nov 2, 2024 | pressherald.com | Talya Zax

Isabel dislikes intimacy, and she likes order. She has invested her entire being in memory, but her memory fails her. It is 1961 in the Dutch countryside, where she has devoted her life to keeping her mother’s house intact, avoiding sharing a space with anyone too closely or for too long and not thinking about the horrors she survived – or ignored – in that very home.
Review | Booker finalist ‘The Safekeep’ is a moving look at history’s horrors

Oct 24, 2024 | washingtonpost.com | Talya Zax

Isabel dislikes intimacy, and she likes order. She has invested her entire being in memory, but her memory fails her. It is 1961 in the Dutch countryside, where she has devoted her life to keeping her mother’s house intact, avoiding sharing a space with anyone too closely or for too long and not thinking about the horrors she survived — or ignored — in that very home.
Uh, was Taylor Swift wearing tefillin at the VMAs?

Sep 12, 2024 | forward.com | Talya Zax

Is it possible that Taylor Swift has entered her era? The singer showed up to last night's VMAs in a corseted yellow plaid contraption, with accessories that some might call punk, and others frum: criss-crossing black leather straps, laced past her elbows. Ok, sure, technically they were fingerless gloves. But spiritually? They said: Ramah camper most likely to join Women of the Wall. Free spirit toying with the idea of becoming baal teshuva , but having a bit too much fun to commit.
Uh, was Taylor Swift wearing tefillin at the VMAs?

Sep 12, 2024 | flipboard.com | Talya Zax

3 hours agoIn the world of showbiz, looking the part can sometimes be just as important as performing well. This realization often hits actors, musicians, and public figures when they are gearing up for major events like movie promotions, award shows, or public appearances. One such instance is when the cost …
The Woman Who Didn’t Want to Get Well

Aug 19, 2024 | msn.com | Talya Zax

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